AIIC campaigns to regulate rental inventories

As the private rental sector in the UK is not very much regulated at present, the government is trying to regulate the sector to make it fairer to tenants. As of now, the situation is lopsided and it is the tenant who continues to bear the brunt. Landlords are having their say which is making tenancy difficult for those who need it the most, especially in times of the current housing crisis. Tenants in the UK continue to face a number of difficulties when living in rented premises. Many a times, they face adverse living conditions which are not suitable for human inhabitation which makes things worse. This is, despite the fact that they pay the required rent.

That is why there have been campaigns to give tenants their rightful place. One of the latest is a campaign by the Association of Independent Inventory Clerks or AIIC which aims to regulate rental inventories. It has urged landlords across the UK to sign a petition which asks the government to tighten up rules around inventories for properties. The AIIC is a nationwide organisation with almost 1,000 members which believes that independent inventory reporting of private rental properties should be an industry standard. It has raised the issue of renters who have to part with their money unfairly. The organisation said that independent inventory reporting of private rental properties should be an industry standard. It argued, with landlords and letting agents currently free to produce their own inventories, renters can be left unfairly out of pocket at the end of a tenancy.

Joint chair of the AIIC, Danny Zane said that the organisation is urging all property professionals, landlords and tenants to sign this petition in order to bring this issue to the government’s attention, which is long overdue. Zane said that it is clear the government is keen to increase regulation and professionalism in the letting sector and there is no reason why mandatory inventory reporting should not be a part of this movement. Zane added that compulsory tenancy deposit protection was introduced in 2007. However, there has never been any additional legislation concerning the documentary evidence required to enable adjudicators to adequately arbitrate on disputes.

The petition acquires importance as it aims to encourage MPs to consider the benefits of mandatory inventory reporting as part of its plans to increase regulation of the Private Rented Sector (PRS) at a time when the government is concerned regarding the rental sector and consulting on the future of the leasehold and property management sector.

The attention government is paying to the sector can be seen from the fact that at the recent Conservative party conference, Communities Secretary Sajid Javid announced plans for a number of new PRS initiatives, including industry-wide regulation of letting agents.